


The Black Bridge

by ApollonDeuxMille



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Attempted Murder, Brotherly Angst, Child Abuse, Duel Monsters era, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hospitalization, Injury Recovery, Isono, Mokuba Kaiba - Freeform, Murder, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma, Repressed Memories, Rewrite, Seto Kaiba - Freeform, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-01 14:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApollonDeuxMille/pseuds/ApollonDeuxMille
Summary: In The Black Bridge we find Seto hospitalised following an almost fatal attack, juggling between nightmares, memory loss, therapy and Mokuba’s attempts to help him through it.





	1. The First Visitors

**Author's Note:**

> This is an absolute re-imagining of a fanfiction called Open Ether that I first wrote and posted on fanfiction.net in 2007 under the name Finnhart (www.fanfiction.net/u/1257389/). There are several chapters already drafted and I have no idea how long the new version will turn out to be. I'm in both work and education at the moment, so I'm uncertain of how much time I can devote to writing, but I'm hoping to post something at least once a week. 
> 
> As I post more chapters the ratings and tags will likely change.
> 
> Happy New Year, y'all.

**1**

When boiled all the way down to the bones and the cartilage, there were very few things that Seto really thought he was frightened of. King of his fears was the loss of Mokuba, and of course with the greatness of the fear came obsession; often-times Seto found himself clawing bluntly at his scrunched eyelids as terrible images of his young brother, dying in evermore dramatic ways, ran on shuddering replays through his mind. His lesser and more abstract fears were easily linked to Mokuba, too. He feared the loss of his wealth because he didn't know how he could care for Mokuba without it. He feared the loss of himself, to one thing or another, because who would care for Mokuba if he didn't?

Today though, with tubes in his nose and needles in his arms, Seto thought of what more could possibly frighten him now that he'd felt and seen and smelled and touched so many things he never thought he would. Days had gone by, so now that tangible fear, that feeling of still being in that terrible somewhere else, had dissipated to a grisly slide-show of memories. He remembered it like a dreadful film, but if he dreamt of it at night he could feel it crawling all over his skin and under his scalp.

'Good morning, Kaiba-san .'

Seto startled, he hadn't noticed the nurse come into his room. He said good morning back to her, with some difficulty, so she came and lifted a water cup with a straw to his mouth. Nodding his thanks he pushed himself up as well as he could whilst she plumped his pillows.

'Any unusual pain?'

'No more than the usual.'

'Good.' She tilted her head and peered at the drainage bag on the side of the bed. 'Good urine output and colour, no blood visible,' she said absently, noting things on the clipboard from the end of his bed as she checked her fob watch. She put the clipboard and pen down before pulling on a face mask and fresh pair of blue latex gloves. Seto saw That Look in her eyes above the mask and made a grim line with his mouth, resting his head deep into his pillows and looking up at the white ceiling, pretending to be somewhere else. Whilst she fetched her warm soapy water, one part of his brain told the other part to shut up. _You could be dead, you know._ And that was true, so he kept quiet as she gently pulled his foreskin back and cleaned around his catheter, rearranging him as he was when she was done.

Snapping the gloves off and pulling the mask down, she informed him as she recorded his temperature and blood pressure that the consulting doctors and surgeons would be through shortly to assess the progress of his major wounds. 'But don't fret,' she said, with no prompting whatsoever. 'You'll heal fast, because you're young.' And then she was gone.

Seto wondered when he would be allowed to eat.

 

* * *

 

**2**

Being left to his own limited devices was not a spectacular idea, Seto found himself thinking. He understood why they wouldn't let him have visitors just yet, but the mental stagnation was assuredly a hindrance to his recovery. He just knew it. As soon as he was off the operating table and into the recovery room, his people – directed by Mokuba, most certainly – had a number of items sent for. Several decks of standard playing cards were there, with which he played upon his swivelling side table games of Canfield Solitaire, Spider Solitaire and Forty Thieves, and sometimes made elaborate towers until the nurses or doctors came in, and then he would huffily have to sweep the stacked cards away so they could check him over. There was not a Duel Monsters card in sight, but he knew that Mokuba would have his decks and surplus cards locked away, safe until his return.

Beyond the cards he had some books; essays and novels by Kenzaburō Ōe, and history books ranging from documentation of the Dutch Tulip Mania, the Jacobites and the Nara and Heian Periods of Japan, which were his favourite periods to read upon. They kept his mind busy, but his eyes became gritty with much greater swiftness than they did before; he would only manage a few pages before waking up to find a nurse had marked his page and put the book on the side table. After three days like this he started to grow restless, and took to practising throwing cards into various receptacles around the room, many of them missing the mark, much to the endless irritation of the staff.

On the fourth morning he was allowed to eat real food, and was found delicately scooping up mouthfuls of ochazuke – green tea over rice – as an uncoordinated clunking sound lifted his attention to the doorway.

'Isono-san! '

Seto put his spoon down and started to push his table away, but as Isono finally manoeuvred his wheelchair through the door and squeaked his wheels towards Seto he shook his head. 'Don't stop eating on my account, Kaiba-sama, ' he ushered, a little breathless. 'I don't mind. We're in hospital, after all.'

'Very well.'

Isono fiddled with his wheels until he was at a satisfactory distance and angle from the bed and flopped his arms into the rests, apparently exhausted. Seto was meticulously delivering food into his mouth again.

'You look bored, Kaiba-sama, ' Isono said, smiling through his heavy breathing. Above his head his bag of whatever intravenous fluid he was on glistened in the soft, unnatural lamplight. Seto was not allowed to be treated in rooms with windows. It was written somewhere.

'I am, Isono-san. It's getting very bad. When will Mokuba come?'

'He was on premises during your surgery, but he's back at the Tower now. He has to take care of things, everyone and their dog is screaming over this whole incident. He gets a detailed report from the head of the team treating you twice a day. He's going to come when the preliminary stages of the internal investigations are done.'

'Who does he have with him?'

'Directly, Kaito-san and Sora-san. Fuguta-san is personally overseeing the high profile investigations, but he's there when Mokuba-sama needs him.'

'Good.' Seto put his spoon down and pushed away the table, unable to finish what was left in the bowl. He was wearied again somehow, and settled back into his pillows. 'That lot can handle it. Mokuba doesn't like them as much as he likes you, though.'

'I know.'

They were both comfortably quiet for a few moments. Seto looked at Isono's face, still swollen oddly, blackish purple blotches here and there, redness elsewhere. Hideous stitches like spider legs protruded across his forehead and jawline where they held his skin together. 'When do we have the psychological evaluations?'

Isono inhaled quite sharply through his nose. 'I'm not sure,' he said earnestly. 'I suppose when most of the physical healing is done, and most certainly before they'll let any of us back to work.'

Seto pursed his lips, staring blindly at Isono's slippers.

'Any of us... how is Yūto-san ?'

The silence was only a few heartbeats long, but it seemed to trickle on for much, much longer.

'He'll live, they're quite certain. They said his surgeries went well.'

'Yes, but how _is_ he?'

Now Isono was distractedly rocking his wheels to and fro with his hands, turning a half angle this way and that way.

'I only know that he's undergone more than one amputation,' he said, as if he was reading from an itinerary. Seto clenched his jaw and his teeth began to hurt. 'And that they are certain the sight in one of his eyes is permanently lost.'

Isono wasn't ready for it, and neither was Seto really, but a single breath after the last word was uttered and the unfinished bowl of ochazuke was cracking and splattering against the opposite wall. As Seto reached for something else to throw – now a vase filled with an opulent Get-Well-Soon bouquet from Pegasus – Isono had lurched from his wheelchair with a shout and caught the straining arms, just as a pair of nurses came sweeping in.

_'They'll sedate you–'_ he hissed into Seto's ear through his teeth. Seto turned to him, panting, wild-eyed and frowning, as one nurse prised the vase from his hands and the other guided Isono back into his wheelchair. There was a vicious plume of blood over the bed from Isono's arm where his cannula had been torn out.

'Will there be any more drama?' the nurse said as he was stemming the blood flow.

Seto trembled and shook his head. That was all the nurse needed before he swiftly wheeled Isono out and back to wherever he was supposed to be.

 

* * *

 

**3**

Seto was finishing whole bowls of rice and moving onto frugal portions of fish and vegetables the next time Isono came to his room. He didn't clumsily drive his wheelchair into the doorframe this time and didn't seem nearly so tired as last time.

'Isono-san –'

'Please don't apologise, Seto-sama, ' he said, somehow smiling again. 'Not for that.'

'It was horrible.'

Isono parked himself next to the bed like he did before. The swelling in his face was taking a long time to dissipate, but the dark colours seemed to be lifting. His stitches were still ugly and it seemed that he was not allowed to shave.

'I've been to see Yūto-san, he's awake and vaguely lucid.' Seto perked up. 'And Fuguta-san came to see me, he's done with the initial brunt of his investigations.'

'Fuguta-san did not come to see _me._ '

'No, I suppose he thought seeing you like this might come off as a little disrespectful. But you know this means Mokuba will be able to tear himself away from the Tower now. Apparently he's been complaining about the pent house.'

A little laugh came out Seto. 'It's too big for him on his own.'

'Masumi-chan is with him.'

'Excuse me?'

Isono went still. 'Masumi-chan. My wife.' His eyes went as wide as they could underneath the swelling. Seto was blinking at him.

'I know who Masumi is. Why is she at the pent house with my brother?'

Several stuttering utterances went by. 'He likes her. And she's my wife, her background checks are all clear.'

'But why not someone from the manor staff? I vetted them all myself.'

'Because –' came a young and weary voice from the threshold '– that would just get weird after we're back to normal.'

In unison both Seto and Isono exclaimed _'Mokuba!'_ as he stepped into the room. Awkwardly, Seto noticed, Masumi was following behind him.

'Masumi-san, I must apologise if you heard any of that.'

She bowed extremely low, too low, her elegant braid sliding over her shoulder.

'There is no apology to be made,' she said. When she unfolded, she looked at her husband and it was painfully evident that she was seeing him for the first time. Gasping, almost staggering, she went to Isono's side, her hands strumming the air around his face, clearly horrified, not daring to touch him in case she hurt him. At this point Seto realised that in the days since they'd all been in hospital, the days that Mokuba had been living in the pent house so he could fully grip the beastly reins of Kaiba Corporation, Masumi had sacrificed what she must have wanted the most; to see her husband, the father of her numerous children, and took herself off to look after a child that was not her own. Seto then wondered what desperate scene must have played out for Mokuba to be able to magic Masumi away with him to the pent house. As he looked into the blood-shot, grey eyes of his little brother, Seto saw the billowing ashy rubble that gets left behind after a tremendous disaster.

'Let's go back to my room, Masumi-chan,' Isono whispered. She nodded, totally choked, and gripped one of the handles of the wheelchair to steady herself as Isono pushed himself along. They disappeared, forgetting to close the door behind them. Mokuba, who was shaking and gulping by now, robotically got up to close it himself, but as he turned to come back to the bed his tears overtook him. Seto reached his long arm out to pull Mokuba into his side.

'Don't squeeze me too hard,' he murmured into the top of Mokuba's silky black hair. 'I've got some cool stitches. Do you want to see them?'

_'No!'_ wailed Mokuba, freely sobbing into Seto's hospital gown. He couldn't say more than that as he let all his grief and stress slip free from his eyes and lips. Seto rested his head on top of his brother's hair, wrapping his arm around him as tightly as the tubes he was connected to would allow. Unlike Mokuba, who felt his feelings loudly and freely like the child he still was, Seto only let hot tears fall down his cheeks like a weeping statue. But unlike the times he'd cried before, he was now awash with a devastating sensation of relief. With Mokuba curled into his side, warm and alive and emotional and far more capable than most would ever know, he soared above that fear he'd felt all those nights ago as he lay bleeding and desperate; that he would never see or touch or hear his brother ever again. For the first time since many years ago, Seto joined Mokuba in his trembling and whimpering.

After a while, when both their faces were puffy and their heads felt like cotton, Mokuba peeled his face off Seto's gown and sat up, wiping his face with his sleeve. He blinked, his eyes glistening like dark moonstones, then leaned forwards and wiped Seto's face too.

'Thanks,' Seto croaked, turning to fetch his cup of water from his side table. They both drank small sips and then fell silent, each a little too raw, each still drawing wet, shuddering breaths through their noses.

'It always feels like night time in here,' Seto mused out loud.

'Well it's still light outside.' Mokuba looked at his watch. 'It's only quarter to five.”

They went quiet again, but it was tense this time. They each were steadfastly looking at opposite sides of the bed from each other. Seto turned after a while though, and jiggled his arm around Mokuba's shoulders to draw his attention.

'What's going on with Masumi-san, then?' Mokuba shrugged and did not answer. Seto jiggled his arm again. 'I'm asking you a question, Mokuba.'

_'Nothing,'_ he whined defensively.

'It is _not_ nothing.'

Mokuba sniffed angrily as his breath started hitching again. 'I was scared,' he whispered brokenly. Then his voice leapt up into a shrill cry. 'You nearly _died!_ Looking after the company by myself when you're abroad on projects isn't the same as looking after the company by myself because you're half _dead!'_

Seto chewed his lip, sliding puzzle pieces together in his mind. 'Masumi-san is no mother of yours,' he said carefully. 'Where have her children been during all this?'

'She's the nearest thing to a mother I know.' Mokuba shifted until he was back in the nest of Seto's chest, hands tucked under his chin. 'And she sent her kids to their grandparents the night she found out. She said she couldn't cope with all five of them by herself.'

It wasn't so bad, thought Seto. But he wasn't pleased. He had spoken to Mokuba more than once about latching onto various women around their circle of the company. There had been a secretary, not really mothering age, only ten years older than Seto, but old enough in Mokuba's eyes, who had to be transfered to another building to put an end to the habits his brother was developing.

'She's not your mother, Mokuba. You can't expect those things of her.'

'I don't!' He was whining again. 'I just went to see her because I was upset, I thought it would cheer me up. But she was upset too.' He was fiddling with a crease of Seto's gown under his fingers. 'I was crying, and then she was crying, and then Fuguta-san was crying –'

Seto shifted, incredulous, gazing down into Mokuba's face. 'Fuguta-san was crying,' he repeated in a deadpan voice. Mokuba chuckled.

'It's a secret,' he said, a little less cloudiness shadowing his expression. 'But we were all upset and in shock. Most people cry when they see children crying, I've noticed. And then when you see grown-ups crying it makes it worse, because they're not supposed to do that.'

A sudden flash of a deeply buried memory came to Seto. He saw his father – his real, blood father – bent over a cheap kitchen table, crying into his hands. Seto had padded out of his room, where his bed and the baby cot were, to tell his father that the baby had been sick and that it smelled, so please could he clean it up. Then he asked _'when is mama coming home?'_ but that made his father cry even harder.

'Anyway,' said Mokuba, dragging Seto out of the swamp of his old memories, 'I asked if I could come in to see her kids, y'know, to play with them, to make me feel better, but they weren't there and she told me why. So I said if she was lonely and I was too, she could come and stay in the pent house with me, and she wouldn't have to cook or clean or anything, and get all the news straight from me instead of fretting at home alone.'

Seto side-eyed his little brother. 'You're really trying to sell it to me,' he drawled. Mokuba looked up at him with some kind of hopefulness, perhaps for forgiveness. 'Just don't get carried away,' he warned. 'Masumi _-_ san is a good person, but she has her own life and her own family. And whatever you get up to when you sneak over there – _ah!'_ he snapped sharply and raised his finger as Mokuba started to complain. 'Don't think Isono-san doesn't tell me when you turn up unannounced and eat dinner with his kids. Whatever you get up to, don't forget that we have a professional connection with that family, and the more personal it becomes, the less effective it becomes.' Mokuba scowled. 'And dangerous, too. Don't forget that personal ties are how enemies will find weaknesses in their targets. Don't make that woman and her children targets just because they're too close to a Kaiba brother.'

'I didn't think of it like that.'

'Of course you didn't, but now we've had this talk. Now you're aware of it. Stay wary, Mokuba. We have enemies everywhere.' Seto gestured to the stab wounds in his side. _'Everywhere.'_

 

* * *

 

**4**

After a few rounds of Rummy and two and half card towers, a nurse came in with Seto's 6pm supper. He had more complex food now. This evening along with his rice and miso he had vegetable tempura and small dish of pickled things and another of sliced citrus fruits. He let Mokuba pick a crisp slice of lotus root tempura for himself before primly going in with his chopsticks.

'The food is nice here,' Mokuba commented.

'Of course it is, I donated ¥5,000,000 to this hospital last year.'

'Wow.'

'I think I'll donate some more once I'm out.'

'Good idea.'

When the food was gone Seto pushed his swivel table aside, then asked Mokuba to get a bottle of green tea from a vending machine. _Come with me,_ was the reply, but Seto had only had his catheter out yesterday and could barely make the walk to the adjoining toilet and back. _I'll get a wheelchair then,_ was the next reply. Seto groaned as Mokuba left the room, scowling at the end of his bed until his brother returned dutifully with a wheelchair and a nurse to help transfer his IV bags onto the poles. This nurse was the one who had whisked Isono away after Seto had thrown his bowl against the wall, but he acted as though nothing unusual had ever occurred in this room. He supposed there was far more drama and terror to be seen elsewhere in the hospital.

After shakily clambering out of the bed and settling into the wheelchair, letting the nurse drape a blanket over his knees and slide slippers onto his feet, Seto was wheeled out into the bright corridor by Mokuba, with the nurse following several paces behind. Once they were out, Seto realised there had been a guard placed at his door, probably the whole time he'd been there, who fell into step a few paces behind the nurse.

The unusual train of bodies snaked their way slowly through corridors, until at last a vending machine came into sight. Mokuba parked Seto in front of it so he could order what he wanted, and slid a ¥1,000 note in. They all traipsed back to the room after Mokuba fished his change out of the machine, and that was the extent of their outing. 

Back at the room they found Masumi waiting on a bland chair beside the door. Totally vacant, staring at the peak of her crossed legs, she didn't notice the company arrive until the shadow of the guard loomed over her as he sidled back into place. Her watery eyes roamed a little until they settled on Mokuba's face, who smiled and asked her to wait just a few minutes. _We have to put my brother back in the bed._ Her returning smile was diluted, but genuine. _Take your time._

Seto and Mokuba thanked the nurse as he vacated the room with a polite bow, then promptly failed to look at each other directly, as if it meant they wouldn't have to say goodbye. It did not work.

'Please make Masumi-san go home.'

Mokuba sighed faintly. 'Okay. She probably feels better after seeing Isono-san. I feel better now that I've seen you.' He gazed up into Seto's face. 'You don't look as beat up as Isono, though.'

'She'll be fine, Mokuba.'

They looked at each other for a few heartbeats, wondering how the other was possibly coping, plumbing the depths of whatever cosmic wishing well to have and give the strength to crawl back to normality. They were in the monstrous oblivion of knowing they could overcome as they'd been forced to before, but believing they just couldn't do it all over again.

'When do you start all the therapy stuff?'

Seto pretended to look for his cup of water. 'Which kind?'

'The talk therapy.'

'I don't know,' mumbled Seto into his cup, which he did not sip from. Mokuba chewed his lip, staring at the straw as it lolled around.

'It's not that bad,' he offered. 'I know you hate the idea of it, but it's not that bad.'

'What are you supposed to say?'

Mokuba blinked and shrugged. 'You just talk about what happened and how it makes you feel.' He huffed when a unsightly expression of loathing took hold of Seto's face. 'It is _not_ that bad.'

Seto's face did not shift. Mokuba knew this could be an impossible hurdle for his brother to overcome.

'Write it down, it helps.'

'You mean keep a diary? Like some kind of simpleton?'

'I keep a diary.'

'I'm sorry.'

Somewhat embarrassed, they returned to looking at opposite sides of the room. Seto put his cup back and Mokuba stood up to put his coat on.

'I'll bring you some stationery tomorrow. Trust me, it helps to unscramble your thoughts. You won't get so frustrated during the sessions.'

With his fingers on the door handle, Mokuba turned back, a little stony with determination. Seto thought he was strong because he popped out like that, because he was the little brother to a monolith of power, because he was just naturally chirpier. _Or some other shit._ But Mokuba's work to stay afloat with ten tonnes of no-one-can-ever-know-about-this chained to his ankle was an odyssey of obsession, a fight everyday against a vampiric energy plastered in the cavities between his organs. He had his helpers, regardless of how little he thought he needed them in days gone by. Seto would have his helpers too, eventually.

'I will throw your deck into the koi pond if you don't try as hard as I do, brothermine.'

Seto looked up in time to see the tails of Mokuba's hair and coat flutter through the door before it clicked shut again.


	2. The Cafeteria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an absolute re-imagining of a fanfiction called Open Ether that I first wrote and posted on fanfiction.net in 2007 under the name Finnhart (www.fanfiction.net/u/1257389/). There are several chapters already drafted and I have no idea how long the new version will turn out to be. I'm in both work and education at the moment, so I'm uncertain of how much time I can devote to writing, but I'm hoping to post something at least once a week. 
> 
> As I post more chapters the ratings and tags will likely change.

**1**

Mokuba was of course true to his word and returned the following morning with a small leather satchel for Seto. Inside: three moleskin journals with softly lined paper, a fountain pen with cartridges of black ink, red ballpoints and green ballpoints, and a slab of neon post-it notes.

'Why so many books?'

'You'll be surprised how easy it is to get carried away.'

Seto scoffed. 'Don't make me laugh.'

'No one's laughing.'

There was a deathly quiet in the room after that. A knock at the door gave them a welcome distraction as a nurse came in to fuss with the clipboard on the end of Seto's bed. Mokuba stoically sat in a chair by the wall as he watched his brother have his temperature and blood pressure taken, answer questions about urine colour and leg pain, before she informed him, as she did everyday, that the consultants would come by later in the day. As she put the clipboard back and went to the door she peered over her shoulder.

'Don't forget to go for a short walk or two during the day. We want you to avoid developing blood clots in your legs.'

She was gone and the room was awkwardly silent again.

'Do you want me to come on a walk with you?'

'Let's find some coffee.'

* * *

  
**2**

Seto clothed himself in a smart, fresh set of bamboo fabric pyjamas, wincing as he did it, only accepting Mokuba's help when he couldn't bend to manoeuvre into the arms of his cotton robe. With a gentle thank you, he pushed his feet into his slippers and set off to lead the way to wherever they would find coffee, nodding at the guard who was on duty by his door, who wordlessly slipped into step behind them.

The going was slow, but not wobbly, and it didn't take them too long to find a cafeteria with agreeable décor and relatively comfortable looking seats. Mokuba told Seto, who was mildly breathless, to sit down whilst he fetched their drinks. _Something small with a little foam,_ was the request. So Mokuba returned to the table with two small cups filled with velvety lattes, and set his brother's cup in front of him. The foam had a heart in it. Rolling his eyes, Seto brought the cup to his lips but didn't drink, abruptly noticing the satchel at Mokuba's hip.

'Are you expecting me to write now?'

'Could do.'

With the small table between them neatly set with stationery, they each took a moment to savour a few mouthfuls of their drinks. The guard was looming eight feet away in an alcove beside the sweeping fronds of a butterfly palm. Seto was reclining in his chair, uncomfortable in both body and mind, as Mokuba propped himself on his elbows with his warm cup pressed to his cheek. Gazing absently at lazy snowflakes falling beyond a large window on the other side of the cafeteria, Mokuba pondered on what a dreadful start to the new year this was for all of them. His gaze refocused to a table in his periphery, where there sat two occupants, a somewhat raddled but jolly looking man and a young girl wearing a large gauze around her scalp whose legs didn't reach the floor. She caught Mokuba's gaze and went still and wide-eyed like a cornered rabbit. Even from his distance across the room he saw her eyes flicker to Seto and back. Mokuba smiled.

'Draw one of those little Blue Eyes you do.'

'Will it help?'

Mokuba rolled his eyes. 'No. It's for her.'

Seto turned stiffly, hooking an elbow over the back of his chair. He saw the little girl tugging on the man's sleeve and flapping the spoon in her other hand in his direction. Turning back, huffing but amused, Seto flipped open a moleskin and replaced the coffee in his right hand with the fountain pen.

'Go and say hello. Find out what her name is.'

As Mokuba sidled over to the table, courteously greeting the man, who appeared slightly flustered and embarrassed by the girl's excitement, Seto uncapped the pen and began scratching out his little doodle of the Blue Eyes White Dragon. He was no artist – of this sort at least – but made an effort to portray a good enough likeness when he noticed a trend in the younger fans asking for the drawing. _This is Mokuba's fault._ The first Blue Eyes drawing Seto ever did, or rather the first one anyone ever knew about, went viral on multiple platforms within twenty-six minutes. Mokuba found it haphazardly filling the corner of a page of a notebook that Seto had fallen asleep on. The artificial shutter sound had woken him. Mokuba chuckled as he waved the screen of his smartphone, where Seto saw the square snap of himself asleep with his face stuck to his notebook, the small Blue Eyes attempting to bite the end of his nose. Devastating masses of little hearts were flocking across the screen already. Seto threw the notebook at Mokuba as he skidded out of the room, snorting with impish delight.

'The girl's name is Tamiko. She says her favourite ride at Kaiba Land is the Carousel of Dragons. She's sweet.'

Seto twisted his tongue between his teeth as he wrote. _Dear Tamiko-chan. May you enjoy many more rides on the Carousel of Dragons. I designed it myself. Get well soon. Seto Kaiba and_ – he leant back to allow Mokuba to fill in his name on the page, then carefully tore it out.

'I'll take it. Grab another coffee?'

His eyes lingered on the back of Mokuba's head as he hoisted himself upright with a grunt. Cumbersomely rigid from sitting in a hard chair for the first time since last week, he all but hobbled over to meet Tamiko. She was guffawing, disbelieving, mouth hidden behind two cupped hands as the man – Uncle Hinata, as it turned out – half-stood to bow and greet him. Seto inclined as much as he could in his state and turned to the girl.

'Tamiko-chan,' he said, presenting his autographed drawing to her by the top two corners. 'I hope you'll be well enough to return home soon.'

'Thank you, Kaiba-san, and you too,' she whispered, in awe of her scrap of paper. She looked back up at Seto and pointed at her bandages. 'I fell out of a tree!' She laughed, as if narrowly avoiding cracking open your skull was a hilarious adventure. Seto smiled, but it was a little too business at the corners. He was becoming impossibly tired.

'Better take more care next time, otherwise the dragons from the carousel will miss you.'

He turned to leave, nodding his head amiably as both Tamiko and Hinata smiled and bowed from their seats.

Back at the table Mokuba was waiting with a fresh latte.

'Cute,' he murmured fondly, looking at Tamiko fussing over her piece of paper. 'Anyway, let's get writing.'

'Seriously?'

'Yes.'

Seto wriggled into as much of a comfortable position as he could, grimacing as he took up the fountain pen again.

'This will be a waste of time, Mokuba. There's no point to it.'

'Yes there is. Just start by writing how you feel today. Or what you did today. You could start by writing about happened to you, but I don't know how you feel about–'

'Whatever. I'll write something and then I'm going back to my room. They bring me food at midday.'

Mokuba clenched his teeth.

* * *

  
**3**

For twenty minutes Seto sat with his chin in his palm, tapping the page with the pen, as Mokuba glared at him from behind crossed arms.

'I imagine this is how Jōnouchi behaves during lessons at school.'

Seto matched his brother's glare.

'Jōnouchi Katsuya is an idiot.'

'Stop acting like him, then.'

Seto's fist closed around the pen. He pursed his lips and tore the lid off the pen, furiously began scraping the nib against the paper, sending black ink spitting as he pressed too hard. When he was done he threw the pen down and lifted the moleskin to show Mokuba what he had written.

_This is a waste of time._

Once he'd taken in the words, Mokuba closed his eyes. He was working the inside of his lips with his teeth. Alighting onto solid ground from the midst of his temper tantrum, Seto was filled with horror at a nauseating speed when he saw quiet tears appear on Mokuba's cheeks. Utterly poised, he stood, slid into his whale blue duffle coat and spoke in soft, trembling notes as he posted the wooden togs through their loops.

'I try so hard not to disappoint you, Seto. It would be nice if you could do the same for me.'

He bowed, but only for appearances sake; others at the cafeteria had noticed them and plenty had taken pictures, then strode on his short legs up to the guard by the butterfly palm. Seto strained to hear what he said. _Take my brother back to his room in time for his midday meal._ And once more in was gone in the flutter of black hair and coat tails.

* * *

  
**4**

The walk back to his room felt twice as far and ten times as exhausting as the walk to the cafeteria. He let the satchel of stationery drop unkindly onto the end of the bed, let his robe drop from his shoulders onto the floor and eventually let his head drop back onto his pillows. Just in time for his midday meal to arrive.

'Hello, Kaiba-san. Tenzaru soba for you today. Shower and bandage change at 2 o' clock.'

Seto gazed unenthusiastically at the pair of shrimp tempura nestling in the cold noodles. He was not hungry.

'Thank you,' he mumbled.

Alone again, aching yet numb all at once, Seto lay still like the dead, crouching so deeply inside his thoughts that he almost forgot to blink. What purpose was he serving in this petulance? Trying to excuse his behaviour, he thought of how he was lying in a hospital, a great ugly line of stitches across one side of his body, bruises fading slowly. He thought of how he'd woken up surrounded by a troupe of bleeping machines, choking on the endotracheal tube that had been breathing for him, the frightening blur of bodies that came rushing to assist him. He thought of how trapped he felt in his big hospital bed, expecting at every tick of the second hand on the clock that someone would come in to inform him that he was the only one who had survived.

The excuses weren't enough. When Mokuba was included in the equation, there was not an excuse in the world that could ever be enough for the tantrums he was capable of launching. Seto grimaced as he hauled himself up and stretched over his legs to pluck the satchel from the corner of the mattress. He pulled a fresh moleskin out, the fountain pen and the ballpoints, put them on his swivel table next to his food, then worked on plumping his pillows so he could sit up.

Now was the time to start behaving.


	3. The Terrible Something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an absolute re-imagining of a fanfiction called Open Ether that I first wrote and posted on fanfiction.net in 2007 under the name Finnhart (www.fanfiction.net/u/1257389/). There are several chapters already drafted and I have no idea how long the new version will turn out to be. I'm in both work and education at the moment, so I'm uncertain of how much time I can devote to writing, but I'm hoping to post something at least once a week.  
> As I post more chapters the ratings and tags will likely change.

**1**

The first knuckle of Seto's middle finger was hurting, so was his thumb and his wrist. He carefully placed the lid back on the fountain pen and sat back. At last he was interested in his tenzaru soba so he took up the chopsticks in his tired hand and elegantly lifted the ebi tempura to his mouth. Not so crispy as it might have been if he'd eaten it fresh, but delicious nonetheless. Chewing lazily, he brushed his spare fingers over the pages he'd filled. The ink was dry now. He sighed deeply through his nose and began to read over what he had written.

* * *

  **2**

_When it was proposed that the meeting should be held at the Kurobashi estate, I was not pleased. It had been arranged by my people, as per standard procedure, that we meet in one of my conference rooms at the Tower. But ill health was cited as a mitigating circumstance. Kurobashi Ichiro was on his last legs at the fourth stage of prostate cancer, and it would not do well for me or the Corporation to be seen as disrespectful of his condition. I knew little of the disease, but felt more sympathetic of having to transfer the location after a quick web search._

_I cleared a dinner meeting from my schedule on the same day to account for time lost to travel and anything unexpected that happens to people when they are at home waiting to die of cancer. I thought perhaps something dramatic might occur and a team of private nurses would whisk him away, and later announce he'd snuffed it. I wasn't looking forward to it, and had rather intended to rush through things, if I could._

_When we arrived at his manor (smaller but more traditional than my place) I felt a little more at ease when we saw Kurobashi-sama himself, buried under thick blankets in his wheelchair at the grand entrance, waiting for us. He was waving. I thought it was quite unprofessional, but then I was not the one who was expecting to be dead a mere few weeks into the New Year. I myself have behaved a little off since being strapped to tubes and machines. And goodness knows I wasn't right after I got out of that coma._

_Well it was snowing so we got inside quickly. 'We' comprised of myself, my guards Isono and Yūto, and a solicitor from Shiro Tobira, my Corporation's private solicitor firm. Her name was Kojima Matsuko. Matsuko-chan. I haven't asked about her because I know she is dead. I think it will be some time before her funeral takes place because of the extent of the investigation taking place. I anticipate I will be out of the hospital in time to attend, but her body will go back to her family in Hokkaido, and that's a long journey. I don't think I could fly the jet myself._

_I don't like going to funerals, but I've been to many of them as the President of Kaiba Corporation. When the old ones at the Tower die it is rude not to go to their funeral, even by my standards. The only one that made me sad was Kinoshita-san's funeral. He was the architect responsible for the original Kaiba Corporation tower, which both he and I hated in equal measure. I asked him to design my Tower, which is far superior, of course. He was already delicate and wrinkly like crepe paper when I first arrived from the orphanage. I don't know how he lasted so long. I miss the way he used to bark for his drinks. He used to say to me, “Matcha, child! Not coffee! Good grief, boy!” He got away with_ _a lot_ _just before he died. Well, most of his life, I guess._

_Anyway, it was snowing, so we went inside Kurobashi's place quickly. I remember thinking the slippers he gave us were nice. We had to sit at a tall dining table on accounts of his hulking great wheelchair, and had ceremonial tea poured for us. He offered us mochi. “Not quite New Year, yet–” he said “–but I might not live that long.” Matsuko and I accepted the offer. Isono and Yūto we standing like posts at the back of the room and it wasn't proper for them to partake. Isono doesn't care about things like that. Yūto tries not to, but the seed will have been planted and he would have been eating mochi once he'd clocked off work. Yūto's grandfather makes wonderful mochi._

_Kurobashi's solicitor was late. He telephoned ahead and mentioned doubling back to find another road on accounts of a collision on the ice. That annoyed me. I wanted to get the thing over and done with quickly. I tried to poke things along as much as I could without the other solicitor, but really there was little to be done. As I took the opportunity with Matsuko to arrange the documents before us on the table, Kurobashi's wife sidled into the room. I did not like this woman at all. I'd met her once. She had not bowed properly and called me Seto-kun. At this point I merely disliked her as I do with the patronising teachers I have to put up with at the school. I hadn't, up until that day, been able to put a name to that deeper, chillier instinct I inexplicably felt whenever she appeared._

_Amazingly, she completely ignored me when she came into the room. Even of her, I expected a little more. She snipped at her husband. “Where's the solicitor?” They went back and forth in hushed tones. I was merely affronted, but I could tell Matsuko was completely embarrassed. I caught her eyes in the corners of mine and gently shook my head, pursing my lips. Normally I'd snap at someone to have such a disturbance removed, but on that day I was not the host, rather the guest. And it wouldn't do well to insult one's terminally ill host by shouting at his wife, regardless of how obnoxious she was. Eventually, thankfully, she left._

“ _I apologise,” Kurobashi said. “Niko is not handling my illness very well.”_

_I bit my tongue. I guess that's how things go. But to me she seemed just as impatient to get the proceeding over and done with as I was, whether her husband's solicitor was there or not. Kurobashi was the majority shareholder of his corporation, a major distributor of wire products across Japan. His copper wire products are used in a great many of Kaiba Corporation technologies. So I told him I would buy his shares and ensure the continuation of his business legacy. He was happy with the arrangement. In a way it almost seemed as if he didn't care. He was throwing food pellets into my koi pond when we made the verbal agreement, still managing to stand with the aid of a cane at that point._

_We had more green tea after that, and the solicitor was still not there. Kurobashi drove his wheelchair to the window to look at the falling snow, which was being buffeted about in indecisive waves by the roaring wind. He apologised to me. I told him I wasn't bothered. It was a lie and everyone in the room knew it._

“ _Take a walk with me,” he said. He was suddenly grave. Before we left the room he told Matsuko that she could help herself to as much green tea and mochi as she liked. I clicked my fingers at Isono to follow behind. Yūto stayed with Matsuko and behind the closed door I knew he would help himself to the treats. Over the last few days I've tried to convince myself that this is why I chose for him to stay and for Isono to come. So that he could eat the mochi. That would make me feel like a nice boss, which I'm often not. But honestly, I just trusted Isono more than Yūto._

_And for some reason that makes me feel horrible._

* * *

**3**

When Seto's doctors came to pester him at 2 o' clock, they began the process of teaching him how to change his own dressings. They were bolstering him, getting him ready to be a little more independent again. But he wasn't allowed home yet, despite the length of his stay. _When can I go home?_ The leading consultant who was heading the team of doctors pulled the chair up to the side of the bed and sat, speaking as if to a young, frightened child. Seto had no concept of how vulnerable he looked in his pyjamas, how much the vast hospital bed dwarfed his long, spindly frame. He frowned at the doctor and snapped at him to spit it out.

'Well, medically, I'd be happy for you to go home in at least two days time.' He was a kindly man. Seto didn’t like him.

'But?'

'Your board of directors is concerned with the high profile nature of the incident. You're required by your own regulations at Kaiba Corporation to attend several hours of talk therapy before a return to work after leave of this nature. They want you to complete at least fifty percent of the required time before leaving the hospital.'

Seto blinked.

'There is a media storm of... terrifying proportions going on out there.'

'Is there something I'm not being told?'

The doctor sighed. 'I think you should discuss anything to do with what happened and thereafter with the therapist, when they find one for you.'

'They can't find one for me?'

The doctor went a little white and awkwardly cleared his throat. 'That is to say, when someone with the appropriate experience that meets the standards of the board at Kaiba Corporation. Only the best for their president,' he added with a strained smile.

* * *

**4**

Seto had not expected to see his brother again that day.

'Mokuba!' Seto swept aside his game of Spider Solitaire. 'Come here, Mokuba –'

'I just came to check in on you. I've given a lift to Masumi and her children so they can visit Isono-san.'

'Hey –'

'I'm going to wait for them in the cafeteria.'

Seto snarled. _'Mokuba!'_ He didn't use this tone of voice very often; it raised hairs on his own neck as well as Mokuba's. 'I said _come here.'_

Mokuba wouldn't look at him, his lowered eyes behind the veil of his long eyelashes. The snow had dampened his shoulders and in one hand he was holding a limp, soggy beanie hat. His shoes squeaked over the floor as he slowly walked towards his brother. Seto reached out to pluck at the dark duffle coat.

'Why are you so wet?'

'It's snowing really hard.'

'Oh.'

The ticking of the clock and the beeping of the machines encroached upon their restless silence until Mokuba at last flung his hat onto a side table and began to peel off his wet coat. He sat in the chair that the doctor had left close to the bed and folded his small hands in his lap. Still he would not look at Seto.

'Let me show you something.'

A long arm snaked down the side of the bed and returned with one of the moleskins. Seto opened it to the first page and presented it to Mokuba, whose grey eyes were bouncing between his face and the book. He nudged the edge against the little folded hands.

'Here. See? And it's not work notes, either.'

Mokuba hesitantly accepted the book into his hands and lightly skimmed the first few paragraphs.

'Seto...' he whispered. 'I believe there may be a writer in you.'

'Shut up.'

The wretched spell that had been caste over them during their falling-out in the cafeteria was lifted, an utter blessing to both their injured thoughts. Seto took up a handful of Mokuba's long hair and brushed it over its owners nose like a feather, striking a spark of laughter to life, then he fell subdued and serious again. He apologised for his behaviour over their morning coffee, his hands now wrapped calmly around his book, jaw ticking as he felt a developing sense of possessiveness for the pages within. _For fuck's sake, Mokuba._

'Brothermine –' Mokuba leaned forward to listen '–what's really going on out there?'

'Too much.' Mokuba lifted his darkened gaze to meet Seto's cutting blue eyes. 'I'm actually feeling a bit impatient for your therapy to start. I want you to come home as soon as possible.'

'Is this why you've hounded me to write in this book? So I'll be prepared enough to get through on the minimum hours?'

Mokuba hesitated and looked away. 'Something like that. There's a lot going on. Please write everything you remember and feel. They'll let you come home soon.'

There was a horrible tangle of confused questions in Seto's brain. Worst of all the ugly things flapping around his mind was the suspicion that Mokuba was lying to him about something, that in fact everyone was lying to him about something. He felt around in the dark with his fingertips for the traces of what it could be, but there was nothing, only an unpleasant tickling paranoia running along the back of his neck like a spider. He narrowed his eyes at the clock.

'Well, they're bringing me a meal in about ten minutes. I'm not letting you steal tempura from my bowl again. Why don't you go to find Masumi-san?'

Mokuba stood up. He seemed lighter in his step than before, as if he'd shed some hidden iron weights when he took the moleskin in his hands and saw the neat handwriting marching in exact lines across the paper. Seto watched him wriggle into his coat and retrieve his squelchy hat.

'You made her go home, right?'

'Yes, she called the kids back, too. Isono-san's dad is staying there, too. To help look after them.'

Seto looked intrigued. 'I've never met Isono's father. What's he like?'

Mokuba shrugged. 'Practically a clone. He has a white beard.'

They each smiled. Mokuba had his hand on the door frame, telling Seto he'd be back tomorrow if he could get away from the Tower. As he moved to leave, Seto called out.

'Mokuba –'

Those all-seeing grey eyes looked back.

'You didn't throw my deck in the koi pond, did you?'

Mokuba smacked him down with an exceptionally withered gaze and a belittling huff, so alike to the way Seto himself reacted to almost anything Yūgi or Jōnouchi ever said, before tutting and disappearing into the brightly lit corridor.

* * *

**5**

During the night, Seto often dreamt, but rarely remembered the contents of those dreams. On this night, he was to remember.

In the dream space he was definitely himself, he could feel it. But he wasn't Kaiba-sama, he may barely have been Seto. He was a child again, a small one like he was at the orphanage and with him were other small children. He didn't know them, yet they stormed up and down corridors together like creatures in a pack formed out of the necessity to survive. There was always the illusion of safety in numbers, safety in the familiar clattering of tiny shoes and toys. Dustiness surrounded them; cobwebby, stagnant, decrepit chaos. The stairs always carried up to more corridors and rooms and they always carried on down. There was no end to the place, not in the form of walls or doors or windows.

Then a sense of barriers came when _Something_ arrived. It juddered along in the shadows and sometimes Seto would see it's long black fingers dance against a wall like a tangle of wriggling tree roots. It didn't matter where he or the other children scattered to. Beyond the fluttering rags of decay that hung around the corners of every surface, Something was already there, and no matter how far away Something was, it was always breathing into Seto's ear, with gritty, crunching bones and ligaments cracking and grinding as it swayed this way and that. It would hunch over so far just to be able to lend the warmth from its inky lips to the soft little shell of a young child's ear.

Seto watched in his dream through the eyes of the boy he wasn't with bestial inquisitiveness. Something plucked a girl by the arms. She hovered over a broken bannister, looking down into the endless patchwork of descending staircases, poised on her grazed knees with a cold charcoal hand gripping each skinny elbow. Nails like black fangs dug into palms, so vast was the dog-jaw grip around those tiny bones. Something inclined its body, a face bearing down from the shadows above like a face rising from the depths of the deep sea trenches.

And He was here. He was plain to see before Seto's eyes, but to watch was as hard as watching the splatter of innards shooting out of the side of wretched road kill like red party streamers under the crush of a wheel. His eyes were bright but what colour they were remained nameless in Seto's recollection. Yellow or white or green or blue or red. Nothing like that at all. Whatever they were, they burned brightly in His face. Two spotlights of the enemy, tracking him down when he got caught in the barbed wire fence trying to escape in the night. He squeezed His hands and the girl cried. He was ever so pleased with Himself.

Now Seto somehow came to know, as one casually does in the dream space, that the girl was a sister to a sister smaller than herself. She was endless corridors and stairways beyond them, desperately out of reach, but her every shriek and blubber rose up from just below the floorboards. Something was chattering away into the girl's hair, plumes of wispy soot pouring out from behind His clacking teeth. His voice came from everywhere, rasping into the tiny ears of those who could hear it. 

_'I am everywhere. Me. Down there, see? Up here, too.'_

Seto – or whoever he was – felt ice pouring over his head and down his cheeks as those same hands that gripped the girl's elbows slid over his shoulders. He spared himself from the glimmer of what he was certain were those long black claws drumming against his collarbones by keeping his eyes on the girl, watching her shaking around.

_'Your sister is... very small.'_

The girl cried as the shrieks of her little sister grew louder and faster and more urgent. She only knew the word 'no' and she repeated it as much as her small lungs would let her.

_'I'm with her. Just as I am with you.'_

When Something laughed, the sound came out of the walls, the pipes, the floor, the inside of Seto's head. He was kneading the girl's arms like white rags between his black fingers, his spotlight eyes seeking out Seto in the darkness, whose shoulders he was kneading also.

 _'Your small sister is terribly fun,'_   Something said into the clammy flesh of the girl's straining neck. She jerked her head and her skull cracked against the giant chin behind it. It was an unwelcome action to all. Hissing loudly, Something jostled the girl by the arms violently, making her scream. He bellowed in a language that sounded like metal ships sinking into the darkness.

The pits of the bottomless house rumbled as a porcine scream rose through the stairwells.

 _'When you misbehave,'_ Something whispered into the top of the girl's hair, sucking in her scent through his flaring nostrils, _'I will punish the flesh of your sister's small body.'_

A twitch beyond the dreamworld lifted Seto's gaze upwards into the shadows where Something's face had loomed, and when he looked down again, all the way down to his feet, he saw his legs tucked neatly under a white waffle blanket. He wanted to stroke the blanket to know if it was really there, and lifting his arm he found it numb and heavy. He gasped when he saw a tube taped into the back of his hand. He raised his eyes. Something was still there, gripping the girl by her broken elbows, howls tearing through the house as he worked on a body elsewhere in the pits. The Something that Seto could see was laughing through mouthfuls of the girl's hair that he was sucking between the backs of his teeth and his long, sticky blue-black tongue.

Seto looked down again; there were his knees and feet prodding up through the blanket. The second hand of the wall clock was gently ticking even through the calamitous tumult of screaming children and laughing monsters. When he looked back up he only saw the stippled ceiling tiles of his hospital room, but Something still had heavy hands laid across his subconscious. Peering down his prone form Seto saw those bony black hands, more pustular and greasy looking in the soft lamplight of his room. They raced up the plane of his body like scuttling spiders and latched around his neck, practically infinitely long-fingered. He managed to turn his head to the side to locate the sound of snapping, popping bones, and there he saw Something, just as he was in the dreamland, hanging onto the now crushed arms of the girl. She was limp now, her head flopping around as the crouching mass, who left black smudges against the wall and the sides of the bed where his massive form was squeezed tight, lazily rolled his hips against the back of her skirt and slowly coiled his sticky tongue out of his mouth and all the way down his chin like wandering hagfish.

Seto felt the eyes of a nameless colour reach into his brain. He opened his mouth to scream, but he only croaked, and as he croaked the hands around his neck lifted him from the bed and wrung him out like a ragdoll. He was crashing against the bedside tables, the visitors chairs, the bed frame, surely the walls and ceiling too. Everyone in the entire hospital must have been woken up. Suddenly he was pressed deep into his mattress, a weight pinning him down to the point of complete immobilisation. The hands were gone, but the pressure they exerted were not, and Seto was forced to stare in the direction his face was pointing, where he saw Something, alone now, curling into himself as if he was trying not to vomit, huffing and snorting. As he sucked the whole roomful of air into his lungs he seemed to grow, sinewy shoulders brushing closer to the ceiling every time. Seto watched, wet eyes rolled fearfully upwards. The explicit sensory memory of being stabbed filled him so full of adrenaline he thought his heart would slide up and out of his throat, and at last he found his voice.

His screaming felt so loud he thought he would turn inside out if someone didn't come soon. He felt like he screamed for hours until the guard on his door blasted into the room.

It was 2:46am.

* * *

**6**

When taken to write an account of the event for Seto's record of his hospital stay, then at approximately 4 o' clock in the morning, the guard had to ask for a cup of water when he couldn't hold the pen steady enough to write anything. Behind his eyelids all he could see was Kaiba Seto, stiff like the dead under his blanket, his straining arms huddled under his chin where his fingers were frozen into claws, screaming through wide open jaws whilst his eyes, dark and wet like wobbling marbles fixated blindly on the ceiling above his bed.


	4. The Therapist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no concept of time and did not realise that it has been three weeks, not like, one week, since I last updated. So sorry.

**1**

The Dean of the hospital was a woman with an astonishing proclivity for composing her face into a perfect arrangement of bored apathy. So little did she reveal, that as Seto rasped answers to the questions posed by a psychologist, she appeared utterly lifeless. Elsewhere in the room stood a private sector lawyer from Shiro Tobira, from where poor Kojima Matsuko had been summoned. A nurse in dark scrubs, present perhaps to administer sedatives in case of another flailing mishap. And Fuguta, who had come to inspect the condition of the guard on the door and found that he simply could not peel himself away from the sight of Seto, who lay deeply in his stack of pillows, so weary that he could not even lift his hand to summon a cup of water to his lips. His arrogance lay completely deflated as the psychologist paused in his scribbling to put the cup to Seto's mouth.

'It will not be I who conducts your therapy sessions, Kaiba-san,' professed the psychologist. 'I am here on the back of my experience in the field of criminal forensic psychology. I'm here because I can help to navigate through the muddied waters of your ability to recollect the trauma you experienced.'

'Criminal... psychology?' Seto glanced at his lawyer, then to Fuguta and back to the psychologist. 'Am I being reported as a criminal?'

The psychologist put his pen to his paper, speaking to the ink as he diligently wrote. 'You have been found irrefutably guilty of a crime. It must be determined whether you acted in a pre-meditated capacity, or in self-defence and defence of a minor, or minors.'

'What crime?'

From across the room the lawyer spoke. 'I advise you to keep all questions pertinent to the event limited to your therapy sessions, Kaiba-sama.'

Seto peered at him with raised eyebrows.

'Your societal standing gives your every breath regarding the facts the potential for sensasionalisation. Confidentiality exclusive between yourself and your therapist is to be pursued with the utmost diligence until the relevant parties are satisfied that you have regained sufficient memories.'

Too tired to snap, Seto heaved a tremendous sigh and closed his eyelids. 'What did I do?' he whispered to the walls. Abruptly the Dean animated into life, stepping with purposeful slowness across the floor to the exit. She spoke to Seto as she reached for the door handle.

'Kaiba-san, you will be seen now by a detective from the Domino Metropolitan Police Department. Only your lawyer is required to be present. Gentlemen.'

Effortlessly, with only the expression in her voice, she shepherded the unnecessary bodies from the room. Fuguta was the only one who looked back, his line of sight broken by his passing through the door. Then, a collection of shoe steps introduced an disquietingly composed figure. His entire three-piece suit was black except for his charcoal tie. He was tall for a Japanese man; his hair and balbo beard were immaculate. He planted himself at the foot of Seto's bed with unsettling deliberation, his woollen trench coat in the colour of his tie draped over his crossed forearms.

'Good morning, Kaiba-san. I am Detective Ono Makoto from the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Domino Metropolitan Police Department. I'm here to ask you some questions.'

He hung his coat over the end of Seto's hospital bed and pulled a palm-sized notebook and a silver pen from the inner folds of his jacket. Even though his eyebrows were at rest, Ono Makoto seemed to perpetually frown under the weight of profound concentration. The many-toed crows' feet around his black eyes flared as he narrowed his eyes in Seto's direction.

'I'll start with simple questions.' The pen clicked. 'Why did you kill Kurobashi Kenta?'

'Do _not_ answer that.'

Seto gaped as the blood vacated his face, ice pouring over his scalp. From the corner strode the lawyer, gesturing wildly with his arm. Ono Makoto merely gave a rolling flick of his eyes from the page to the lawyer and back again.

'I'm Ishida Daisuke of Shiro Tobira, the private law firm attributed to Kaiba Corporation. I'm here to represent Kaiba-sama as he completes his mandatory therapy and any therapy required thereafter to help regain his full memories.'

Daisuke looked to his most chief of employers, saw him stuttering and crumbling where he lay trapped in his bed, trying to speak but only croaking. Ono Makoto did not seem particularly affected and carried on.

'Did you witness the murders of Kurobashi Ichiro, Kurobashi Niko and Kojima Matsuko?'

Seto gasped through monosyllabic supplications, eyes roving blindly around the room. He was now gulping at the air and started trying to clamber out of his bed, thin tubes straining and tangling around him. Daisuke, utterly harassed, ripped the door open and shouted into the corridor for a nurse. He returned to the bedside and implored Seto to stay where he was. All the while, Ono Makoto merely gazed in vague interest at the scene, as if he was watching an animal exhibiting mildly noteworthy behaviour. He huffed and pocketed his notebook and pen just as two nurses darted in, each going for a shoulder and pushing the patient back into his bed. They implored him to calm down but received only the instinctive jabbing of a fist.

So Seto was held down as one nurse called out for a subcutaneous sedative over the wet, snarling sobs now filling the room. Daisuke rushed to the door to close it against prying eyes just as the needle slid into Seto's skin. The pinch made Seto falter, as if the tiny spark of pain had grounded him. He stilled himself against the agonising desire to scramble away. He laboured heavily through the residual shadows clouding his eyes as he fought to regain control of his galloping heart which was trying to beat it’s way through his breast bone.

Ono Makoto scooped up his long coat. 'Perhaps another time,' he said in a voice possibly flavoured with amusement. Daisuke turned on him.

'I'll inform you that my client is not obligated to speak to any members of the police force without the presence of his lawyer.'

'In that case–' Ono Makoto said over his shoulder as he sidled away '–I'll have to give you a call whenever I decide to turn up. No matter the hour.'

* * *

**2**

Seto slept through his midday meal. When he woke he heard familiar voices in his room, hushed and harried. At first he thought it was the doctors and nurses, but as he became lucid he heard the young, peppery notes of a boy’s voice. It was Mokuba; he was angry. Seto tried to call out.

‘Brothermine...’

With his brain wadded like a mass of dusty cotton, Seto tried to up. The voices stopped.

‘Mokuba… come here–’

Mokuba appeared at one side, squeaking across the floor on wet, rubbery soles, whilst the metallic clanking of a wheelchair against the other side announced the appearance of Isono. Seto blinked through the sandiness under his eyelids and located more bodies in the room. He saw the lawyer, Daisuke, and Fuguta, who drew a hissing breath through his teeth as Mokuba nearly kicked the IV stand over.

‘Seto! The head of your medical team contacted me – are you okay?’

‘My cup–’

Mokuba stretched to take the cup and bring it to Seto’s peeling lips, whose anguish manifested as a deep trembling in his limbs and his chin. He spoke with a voice precariously held together, his sweaty hair falling like a ragged veil across his face.

‘I need to speak to my brother alone.’

‘Kaiba-sama –’

‘ _Get. Out. Now.’_

White in the face, Mokuba looked to the rest of the company and stoically nodded. They reluctantly did as they were bidden, Fuguta staying a moment to hold the door open for Isono who puffed away in his wheelchair. When the door clicked shut, Seto counted to five, reached out to take Mokuba’s hand in his own and squeezed.

‘You’re hurting me.’

Seto loosened his grip slightly.

‘Am I really here?’ he whispered, staring into his lap.

Placing his other trembling hand over the top of Seto’s, Mokuba perched on the edge of the bed, his darkly serious and frightened eyes watching a tear slide down his brother’s nose. He spoke so quietly, as if everybody in the whole world was trying to listen in on them.

‘Seto, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything bad.’

Mokuba’s lip trembled at the look his brother gave him, desperate and vacant in a way he’d not seen in years.

‘What do you mean? I killed someone and I don’t remember doing it.’ Seto was holding onto Mokuba’s hand for his life as the room slowly filled with dark waters. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember.’ His blank eyes widened. _‘Why didn’t you tell me?’_

‘I’m sorry, brothermine!’ Mokuba succumbed to stuttering sobs as he tried to explain himself. ‘I wasn’t allowed! They think if we talk to you about it then – then we might plant false memories – _I’m sorry –’_

Seto felt the dark waters rocking his bed. ‘Are they trying to get rid of me again?’

‘No!’ Mokuba gasped. ‘No, the board of directors have every confidence in you!’

‘But… the man, the criminal psychologist, he said I have irrefutably been found of a crime, of this murder, and the detective, too –’

‘Yes, brothermine. You did do it, but there’s more to be known.’ He tried to laugh through his tears. ‘It’s a slam-dunk even without your statement. You did the right thing, and you did it bravely.’

A knock at the door interrupted them, and they each hastily wiped at their faces with their sleeves. Seto called out for them to enter and Fuguta slipped through the door, opening it as little as he could as if he was trying to stop a dog from following in behind him.

‘Kaiba-sama,’ he floundered, noticing the puffy red eyes. ‘A therapist has been found for you.’

* * *

 

**3**

Seto was immensely wary from the moment he entered the room. This was not the therapist’s office, who had been flown in from a prefecture almost two hundred miles away. The space was airy and opulent, but it had windows, and Seto found himself glancing to the closed curtains with suspicion every few minutes or so. The therapist had been loaned the room by a colleague she studied with many years ago, and she had mentioned that it was ‘adequate’ for her needs. With bookshelves laden with tomes, scientific journals and reputable theses, she had needed to bring very little of her own things, but what she did bring raised both Seto’s curiosity and his doubts.

‘Are you really setting up a kinetic desk sculpture right now?’ he huffed. The therapist didn’t answer as she concentrated on balancing one piece on another and setting it in motion. It was a little aeroplane, off-set by a pendulum at the other end of the axis. It flew in its small circle around the stand, rising and dipping according to the way it had been gently launched.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is a kinetic desk sculpture. I find it helps to have a unimposing point of movement for my clients to focus on if they begin to disappear on me.’

Seto gazed at the little plane. It was okay, he supposed. But the next item was questionable.

‘This is a tactile point for clients. You can hold it, stroke it, or use it to vent frustrations.’

She sat the caramel blonde rabbit teddy on a chair by the window. It had big feet with big pink pads, and it held its front paws together in front of its chest, imploring Seto for something with its plastic, brown eyes.

‘Vent… frustrations?’

‘Yes, you can throw it if you need to. Try not to knock any of Doctor Kato’s… _ornaments_ over.’

Seto looked around and saw a number of swooping, elegant vases and other items of décor that he could only refer to as overpriced knick-knacks. He couldn’t imagine ever needing to throw a stuffed animal across a room, but he thought breaking a few of these ornaments could only be a good thing.

‘Come and sit down, Seto-san.’

A little thrown by the ridiculous novelty of the rabbit, Seto wordlessly settled himself into a leather tub chair opposite the therapist, clumsily wheeling his drip stand over the thick carpet pile. He was instantly uncomfortable.

‘So, I am Doctor Ishikawa Kaiyo.’

Seto nodded.

‘In here, I would prefer it if you get used to calling me Kaiyo-san. Doctor Ishikawa is too much of a mouthful, and much too formal.’

Seto nodded again. Her eyes flicked up from a document she was scanning. ‘Is that okay?’ she prodded with a light smile. Seto started nodding again, and Kaiyo nodded with him under raised eyebrows. ‘Yes?’

‘Yes, it’s okay Kaiyo-san,’ he said stiffly.

‘Good.’ Her folder snapped shut and she put it on top of the small table next to her chair. There was nothing between them but four feet of unobstructed carpet. She didn’t have a clipboard, a notepad, or a dictaphone in her hand. ‘We need to start fairly lightly,’ she said. Her voice was very smooth and deep. ‘This is an exceptionally delicate case, and with time constraints no less.’

‘How long do we have?’

‘Two weeks.’

‘Is that it?’

Kaiyo nodded. ‘Nevertheless, I still need to take some time to ease you into this process. Your file paints a notorious picture of uncooperativeness.’

Seto stared at her shoes, a low, nude stiletto. When he said nothing, Kaiyo continued.

‘You did not receive psychological support after the deaths of either parents. Nor did you receive any to ease you through your adoption process.’  Seto drew a sharp breath through his nose. ‘And again, no support after your coma.’

She settled back into her chair, pausing in case Seto wanted to speak, but of course, he did not.

‘Did you ever try to receive support?’ Seto shook his head. _Mokuba is my support,_ he felt himself thinking, but he did not speak. Kaiyo, much like the Dean of the hospital, was exceptionally well composed, but offered a little more warmth as she gently blinked and inclined her head to accept the small scraps of communication Seto was offering her.

‘I will not lie, Seto-san. This will be astronomically difficult for you, but I do ask, given the time constraints, that you try as hard as you can.’

Seto thought of his moleskin which he had slid down between his thigh and the side of his seat. Kaiyo had yet to enquire after it, but Seto knew she had spotted it, knew he had it tucked out of view. He wasn’t ready to share the pages yet let alone add more to them.

‘Well, normally I would start by asking what brings you here. But I already know the basics.’

‘And… what are the basics?’ Seto could not recline, could not cross his legs nor even comfortably shift in his chair to exhibit his disciplined and haughty bearing. He had to settle for an awkward slump to accommodate the niggling stitches in his side and had carefully arranged his arms on the rests.

‘You were admitted with a severe penetrating injury to the upper left of your abdomen and into your spleen. You suffered critical haemorrhaging and after several blood transfusions you underwent a splenectomy. You will be on low-dose antibiotics for the rest of your life.’

Seto stared at her. He knew all of this, but to hear it listed as if from a bland itinerary without the distraction of rubber gloves and white coats and bleeping machines made him feel intimately aware of the wound in his side. He felt a phantom sensation of something sharp inside him. The aeroplane calmly gliding in small loops on the desk became enthralling, but no sooner had he realised he was looking at it he felt that he’d walked into a trap. He looked at the impeccable bonsai tree on a centrepiece shelf behind Kaiyo instead.

‘You have been successfully treated for sepsis. And you’ve had a series of panic attacks since your admission, and a night terror.’

‘I know all that,’ Seto hissed. ‘What else?’

Kaiyo swapped her crossed legs, the left leg now resting over her right knee.

‘Seto-san, may I ask if anybody has discussed, even in the slightest, what happened at the Kurobashi Estate with you?’

Seto shook his head. ‘There seems to be a general consensus that I may be lead to false memories if they describe something incorrectly, or too emotionally, I don’t know.’ He winced against a sudden flash of pain in his stitches. ‘My board of directors, my lawyers, even Mokuba, are all being exceptionally cautious.’

‘Without a doubt,’ Kaiyo conferred. She picked up her folder again. ‘Tell me what you saw during your night terror.’ She clicked her pen in an echo the detective, Ono Makoto.

Caught off guard, Seto gaped slightly.  He didn’t know how to start and found his eyes flickering between the aeroplane, the bonsai tree and the rabbit.

‘It’s okay, Seto-san.’ Kaiyo smiled softly and Seto noticed her dusky lipstick for the first time. ‘If you don’t know how to describe it, just say things that you saw. You may find you can piece the bits together more easily after that.’

Seto frowned throughout his entire recounting of his waking nightmare. He tried to do justice to how petrifying the Terrible Something had been and how real it felt to have such enormous, spindly hands wrapped around his neck. He struggled to put words to what he thought the Terrible Something was doing to the girls he saw in the dream space. Stuttering into quietness, Seto peered up at Kaiyo, who was writing notes, as if to say, _what next?_

Looking up from her writing, Kaiyo nodded. ‘Experiencing a sense of pressure around the neck or chest is a surprisingly common phenomenon during what we refer to as night terrors. Was this your first night terror?’

‘No.’

‘When did they start?’

Abruptly, Seto hoisted himself to his feet, using his drip stand like a staff. He staggered towards a chaise longue towards the other end of the office.

‘I can’t – I can’t –‘ he stammered. ‘I can’t – sit. Like. That. Anymore.’

Kaiyo rose to her feet and approached her client. ‘You have to be comfortable, Seto-san. You could lie flat on the floor if you really wanted to.’ She tilted her head. ‘Go straight to the chaise longue from now on.’

She departed to wheel the expensive office chair from Doctor Kato’s desk over to Seto’s new perch, reclined and clicked the pen once more.

‘So, when did you start having night terrors?’

Seto replied too quickly. ‘I don’t know.’ A flurry of notes were being scribbled down.

‘We can come back to that one. Perhaps you could tell me what you normally do after you experience a night terror? Particularly ones as vivid as this?’

‘Normally… I’m just confused.’

Kaiyo looked up. ‘Is that all, Seto-san?’

‘I sometimes have to get up. To make sure that what I thought I saw is gone. And then I try to go back to sleep.’ Kaiyo scribbled away. ‘If I can’t sleep for a long time I just get up and make some tea, or have a shower.’

As he lay on the long couch, Seto found himself increasingly fidgety, intertwining and wringing his fingers, trying not to disturb the cannula on the back of his hand. He tapped it and poked around it a bit, before going back to drumming his fingers on his chest.

‘Would you like the rabbit?’

‘Absolutely not.’

There was a short moment of stillness as Kaiyo wrote more notes in her book, using her crossed knees to lean on. Seto noticed she was bouncing her stiletto off her foot. It was a tell that he often saw around the office. She was very much in the swing of her work today.

‘What about the book that you brought with you?’

‘Pardon?’ Seto fluttered unpleasantly. He forgot about his moleskin, abandoned on the tub chair.

‘Would you like me to pass it over to you?’

‘I – yes. Please.’

Once he had it back in his hands, Seto slid it under an armpit and held it safely there. Kaiyo asked him what it was about and he just huffed.

‘It’s just a notebook,’ he grumbled. ‘My brother gave it to me.’

‘I see. What do you write in it?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

Kaiyo stopped writing. She clicked her pen, sat back and peered at Seto with her calm eyes. She let him lie there for a few moments as he ground away with his teeth and scowled at the ceiling. ‘Seto-san, I’m going to step a little out of bounds right now.’ Leaning forward, she spoke matter-of-factly.

‘We have two weeks to do a job that, for some of my clients, can take more than two years. I have to build rapport with you so that you will trust me enough to take care of you during your treatment. I have to rapidly assess you and your needs and decide which of at least four methods I need to employ to help you uncover the memories you have repressed. I have to take into account that there is a backlog of over ten years of trauma that might resurface as a result of this therapy. My job –’ she continued as she strode away to fetch the rabbit ‘–is to give you the best chance of coming out of your trial without any hitches. This was the instruction given to me by _your_ board of directors.’

Kaiyo softly placed the rabbit over Seto’s crossed hands.

‘So,’ she hummed as she sat back down. ‘There is _plenty_ that counts as my business.’

Seto gripped the rabbit’s soft, floppy ears. He tried to pretend that it was a cushion and not a toy.

‘Did you just tell me off?’ he whispered.

‘Yes, Seto-san.’ Kaiyo smiled. ‘Yes I did.'


End file.
